Asteroid 2014 HQ124, nicknamed "The Beast," will fly past the Earth on Sunday, 8 June. This asteroid is measured to be between 800 and 1,300 feet wide, and would have a devastating effect on the region where it landed, if it were ever to hit the Earth.
The speeding body will miss out home world by 777,000 miles, roughly three times the distance to the moon. NASA officials state there is no chance of impact by that body on our planet anytime in the foreseeable future.
Asteroid 2014 HQ124 was discovered by the NEOWISE space telescope launched in 2009 and operated by NASA. The first sighting of the rocky body was made on 23 April, just two weeks before its close-approach to our planet.
The NEOWISE infrared observatory is currently scouring the skies for asteroids and comets that have, so far, gone unnoticed by astronomers. Studying the sky in infrared light allows astronomers to detect bodies by the heat they give off. This is similar to the way many night vision viewers operate, allowing users to see objects and people hidden in the darkness.
NASA estimates an asteroid the size of 2014 HQ124 passes close by the Earth once every few years. Since the time of its discovery, professional and amateur astronomers have made hundreds of observations of the body. From data collected from these studies, officials at the space agency were able to calculate the orbit of the asteroid until the year 2200, confirming it is not a risk to our world for the next two centuries.
During close approach, astronomers will study the body with two of the best radio telescopes in the world. The Arecibo facility in Puerto Rico and the Deep Space Network antenna in Gladstone, Arizona will make careful observations of the asteroid as it passes Earth. This can allow researchers to make extremely precise predictions of the future orbit of the object.
"Because NEOWISE is a space telescope observing the dawn and twilight sky at infrared wavelengths, it is particularly good at finding large NEOs that make relatively close passes to Earth. Using infrared light, we can estimate the object's size, and we can tell that it reflects a fair amount of light. That means it's most likely a stony object," Amy Mainzer, principal investigator of NEOWISE at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said.
The Near-Earth Object Program, also known as Spaceguard, is a NASA group that strives to detect asteroids and comets coming near Earth, to protect our planet, and species, from potentially hazardous impacts. Currently, NASA does not predict any known asteroids will collide with Earth in the near future.
